Morphological characterization and quantitative genetic analysis of sugarcane (Saccharum spp) germplasm

Abstract

The present study was conducted using 100 sugarcane genotypes in 2023-2024 in an Augmented Block Design-II at the Research farm, Main Sugarcane Research Centre, NAU, Navsari. The objective was to estimation of genetic parameters. Based on overall mean performance, genotype 2021 N 144 was identified as best clone exhibiting superior performance over the best standard for juice brix %, purity %, sucrose % and CCS %. Similarly, 2021 N 157 exhibited superior performance for number of tillers at 120 DAS, number of millable canes, stalk length and CCS (t/ha). Therefore, 2021 N 144 identified as best performer for juice quality characters and 2021 N 164 for cane yield contributing characters. Moderate variability, high heritability and moderate to high genetic advance as percent of mean were recorded for number of tillers at 120 DAS, number of shoots at 240 DAS, number of millable canes, stalk length, cane diameter, CCS %, CCS (t/ha), and cane yield.